The hoax is the hoax

near unanimity ? (0.00 / 0)

Jay, there is no scientific concensus yet about man-made global warming.

I have found article after article, from climatologists, with no agenda of their own, telling us that global warming is political science, not true science.

I won't load up this blog with thousands of links, but here's a good place to start -

http://educate-yourself.org/lt...

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by: Eric Coobs @ Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 12:21:23 PM CDT

There's no "consensus" (0.00 / 0)

on a lot of things. But consensus does not imply absolute agreement, either.

I could as easily say that there is no consensus about the existence of god, or evolution, and people still go to church.

There is no absolute consensus about the theory of gravity, and people still get in rockets and fly into space.

There is no absolute consensus about how best to treat cancer, yet people still get radiation and chemo.

In other words, just because some people have it in their heads to disagree with some facts or interpretations of them, doesn't mean we shouldn't take action. QUite the opposite, actually, when one looks at the reasons why some people are deniers. It lends more urgency to get something done.

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by: JC @ Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 12:55:16 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Concensus or not... (0.00 / 0)

I am not going to argue whether or not global warming is happening. Even though it has stopped/slowed (for now). The only argument is how much WE are contributing. I will also not argue that... it can't be done in comments.

However, there is one thing that isn't debatable. The Cap & Trade plan, by 2035 would cost the average family of 4 over $6,000 per year. Even Obama said that electricity rates would "necessarily skyrocket". The $175/yr figure bantered about is only for the 1st year.

The real problem is that the estimates show that this plan would decrease the rising of the world's temperatures by 0.05 degress Celsius. (One TWENTIETH of a degree!) So, all that money, jobs moving overseas to countries without this type of restriction, and job losses caused by cutbacks, and the Cap & Trade would decrease (the increase) by 0.05. And that is IF China and others do not increase their CO2 emissions more than their current growth rate. That's doubtful.

Whether or not you agree with warming, this legislation is horribly expensive for such a small effect, IF it is implemented as is and IF other countries do not increase more than their current rate. France just got rid of thier Cap & Trade and Australia is rejecting it too. Yes, even France.

Jobs will go overseas and the estimates range from $3.8 to $6.9 TRILLION in lost economic activity through 2035. All for 1/20 of a degree.

//You mentioned that Exxon saif they believe in it. You need to watch the $$$... they came out and said that when the 'windfall' profits tax was being considered. Guess what... no tax. It was a great business decision.

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by: shanester @ Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 13:20:38 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

What? (0.00 / 0)

I could as easily say that there is no consensus about the existence of god, or evolution, and people still go to church.

That's an argument? It does seem like much of Global Warming is based on faith. I always thought that enlightened, elite thinkers are usually atheists because they want facts, not faith. Yet, faith seems to be what much of them are working on here.

There is no absolute consensus about the theory of gravity, and people still get in rockets and fly into space.

There may not be consensus on the theory of gravity, but there's no disputing it does exist. The problem is on HOW and WHY. There IS consensus that the globe WAS warming... at least up until 1998/1999. But it's the HOW and WHY! Temps have dropped since. In fact, take a look at the recently generated chart for 1900-2000 that shows the coorelation between temps and on one chart, CO2, and the other, sun activity. The difference is AMAZING. The sun has lowered it's activity for the past 10 years. Guess what? We stopped warming and temps have dropped, even though CO2 levels continued to rise.

There is no absolute consensus about how best to treat cancer, yet people still get radiation and chemo.

Um, yes, there is (in most cases). That'w why people get the treatments you just mentioned, at least now. In the future? There'll be something else.

In other words, just because some people have it in their heads to disagree with some facts or interpretations of them, doesn't mean we shouldn't take action.

People disagree with me that if I take $100 Billion in cold-hard cash and light it on fire, I will stop global warming. Well, that doesn't mean I shouldn't act, right? Of course it does! Why spend billions/trillions on something we're not sure will do much of anything. How about spending a FEW Billion studying it more. Studying the hell out of it. MUCH more - and without politics.. or politicians or businessmen that will profit from it.

When Al Gore left the VP office, he was worth north of $2 million. It's now estimated he worth more than $100 million.

He ALWAYS says that monies go to his non-profit. So? They pay him. And, that non-profit then sends funds to companies he has a financial interest in. Oil companies have an interest in blocking this (it'll hurt their business and their workers, although only in the US), and Al Gore will profit. The truth is, you cannot trust EITHER of them.
Blindly listening to Gore, is the same as other people blindly accepting surveys and 'facts' from Exxon or Conoco.

QUite the opposite, actually, when one looks at the reasons why some people are deniers. It lends more urgency to get something done.

It is also scary on why some people go along. Dr. Jennifer Marohasy, the first woman to get a PhD in Meteorology has finally come out against the man-made theory. (She believes that man's contribution (CO2) to actual warming is tiny.) It was only because she retired that she could finally speak out. She was too afraid to before. Now that she's retired, she can speak freely! THAT'S SCARY! This happens all of the time. Just read about the retribution. People in science fields were afraid to speak out. That means true debate has not happened! It should.

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by: shanester @ Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 14:50:48 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Shanester, you're quite the shyster (0.00 / 0)

1) Facts and faith are not mutually exclusive

2) " The sun has lowered it's activity". Really? News to me. Sunspots are at a cyclical low. But sunspot activity does not correlate with overall solar activity. The thermonuclear reactions inside the sun continue on as before. If you really believe that the sun is reducing its activity, then we have a far greater problem than global warming. You had better hope that the rapture arrives before the globe freezes up solid.

3) "Most cases" is an equivocation, which is different than the "absolute consensus" that I stated.

4) Spend a few billion more for studies? Let the deniers come forth with legislation to just such a thing, and we can talk. But I think that the billions already spent have turned up information worth taking action on. Feel free to disagree. Majorities rule, and elections have consequences.

5) What does Al Gore's net worth have to do with anything? Dick Cheney is worth far more than Gore was/is. At least Gore didn't start a war to enrich himself.

6) We didn't even get a chance to "blindly listen" to Cheney as he huddled in his undisclosed location to put together a national energy policy with all of his oil cronies. Not to mention how to start a war to funnel hundreds of billions to his own company, Halliburton, and other war contractors mercenaries.

7) Marohasy is just one person. And I don't know where you get that she is the first woman to get a PhD. in meteorology. My brother was studying meteorology under a woman PhD before Marohasy was out of kindergarten.

You'll have to try a little harder to put together a cogent argument. This was almost too easy...

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by: JC @ Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 20:27:23 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Degree in Meterology? (0.00 / 0)

Yeah, she's a weatherman....CLIMATOLOGIST study climate change!!!

She works for the IPA...here's a little bit about who's funding her research...

"The IPA has heavily relied on funding from a small number of conservative corporations. Those funders disclosed by the IPA to journalists and media organisations include:

   * Major mining companies - BHP-Billiton and Western Mining Corporation;
   * Pesticides/Genetically modified organisms: Monsanto; and
   * A range of other companies including communications company Telstra, Clough Engineering, Visy, and News Limited;
   * Tobacco companies - Philip Morris (Nahan) and British American Tobacco [5]
   * Oil and gas companies: Caltex, Esso Australia (a subsidiary of Exxon) and Shell [www.ips.org] and Woodside Petroleum; and fifteen major companies in the electricity industry; (Nahan 2)
   * Forestry: Gunns, the largest logging company in Tasmania; (Nahan 3)
   * Murray Irrigation Ltd - a major irrigation company contributed $40,000.[6]

In 2003, the Australian Government paid $50,000 to the Institute of Public Affairs to review the accountability of NGOs.[7]

However, financial support for the IPA has diminished over the seven years from 1995-96 when the IA received $1.4 million to just over $669,000 in 2001-2002 (figures unadjusted for inflation).

Even Rio Tinto, the conservative mining company, abandoned the IPA because of its strident advocacy against Aboriginal self-determination. [8]."

Sounds like a real good "think tank"....NOT!

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by: big sage @ Sat Jun 27, 2009 at 17:49:32 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

this comment thread is stupid--how about a wager to liven it up? (0.00 / 0)

"article after article"?  How about you pick just one, Eric, and post the citation.  I'll reply to that by debunking it, citing an authoritative source.  If I can't do it within a day or so (that's as often as I read this blog), I'll donate $5.00 to the charity of your choice.

My conditions: the article must be by a climatologist, i.e. someone with an advanced degree in climate-related science and one or more peer-reviewed articles in reputable scientific journals.  Not a meteorologist, or an engineer, or 3rd Viscount, Monckton of Brenchley (look at that, Eric, I followed your link! :-) unless they are also a climatologist in addition to that other title (i.e. Christopher Monckton doesn't count, although if you post an article by him I'll gladly debunk that as well).

Seriously, given the nature of climate change consensus today, "climate change hoaxers" deserve to be taken just as seriously as "Obama birthers."

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by: Duncan Idaho @ Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 20:42:36 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I thought that (0.00 / 0)

"climate change hoaxers" and "Obama birthers" were all the same people. Throw in some tea-bagging, too. Fringers looking for another loony position to add to their repertoire.

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by: JC @ Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 23:42:35 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Forgot to mention... (0.00 / 0)

Greenpeace just came out against the bill. TODAY!
For the same reasons... it's horribly expensive and will do almost nothing to curb any warming.  

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by: shanester @ Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 13:22:48 PM CDT

Straw Man Arguments (0.00 / 0)

You're using the same straw man arguments Obama uses.

All you need to know is that there's near unanimity that the climate is warming, and that human activity is contributing to the warming.

I don't know of anyone that disagrees with that. Even Inhofe knows that.

The disagreement comes about in HOW much HUMANS are contributing to the actual warming. Duh. Nobody says it isn't happening. Well... didn't happen, our temps are lower now. That's not to say they won't go up again, but it is fact that they have trended lower the past few years.

That's the same tired argument Obama says about everything... "Some say we should do nothing about the recession." What? I've never heard ANYONE say that... they just disagree with how much!

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by: shanester @ Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 15:00:46 PM CDT

The disagreement is about (0.00 / 0)

how important future liveability is compared to present-day convenience and comfort...

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by: jed @ Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 19:14:54 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I would certainly love to see you defend this statement, JC. (0.00 / 0)

1) Facts and faith are not mutually exclusive

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by: jed @ Sat Jun 27, 2009 at 00:30:38 AM CDT

Sure (0.00 / 0)

Maybe it would have been better phrased: "Facts and faith are not necessarily mutually exclusive."

I was responding to the assertion that "enlightened, elite thinkers are usually atheists because they want facts, not faith."

In regards to Shanester's generalization, he misses the point of atheism, which is to deny the existence of deity as defined by dogma. Atheism is not a wholesale denial of spirituality. The elite thinker does not confuse spirituality with religion.

As the unknown becomes known, facts may accurately replace faith. Or they may displace false notions. One will never know for sure which it is, until the unveiling of the factual nature of the problem at hand.

To bring this back to the deniers--those who most likely have faith in their deism or religion--it is odd that they would demand fact for that which will eventually be known (the course of global warming), but not for that which will not (the existence of deity). It is they that are confused by fact and faith.

It would be as easy for me to say that the unenlightened, dull thinkers are usually deists because they want faith, not fact. But that would not be fair.

There is far more evidence about the nature of global warming than there is for the existence of deity. For the denier, that isn't a problem. For the elite thinker, it is.

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by: JC @ Sat Jun 27, 2009 at 02:33:56 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I am unaware of any evidence of deity, JC. (0.00 / 0)

If there were as much as there is for global warming--and for the level of our responsibility for it--I would be groveling at the feet of that particular Deity...

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by: jed @ Sat Jun 27, 2009 at 12:23:34 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

There you go again (0.00 / 0)

with your absolutist arguments... ;-)

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by: JC @ Sat Jun 27, 2009 at 21:43:40 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Not absolutist. (0.00 / 0)

I am willing to regard credible evidence with hopeful care.

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by: jed @ Sun Jun 28, 2009 at 00:09:16 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

But how would you ever (0.00 / 0)

get credible evidence from any potential omnipotent deity(s) that don't want you to get it? Omnipotence rules...

That's the problem facing the rapture crowd. You'd think that if there were a deity that wanted his subjects to worship them, he'd make it readily apparent that he was open for business, and quit masking his plans in obscure artifacts and writings.

Conversely, science has accumulated much physical evidence and hard facts about global warming The deniers just want to argue interpretation of facts about it, not the facts themselves. But try to argue with interpretation of facts about their faith-based relidgions, and you get a 180 degree turnabout. I'd call that hypocrisy of the 1st degree.

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by: JC @ Sun Jun 28, 2009 at 14:06:27 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Bingo! (0.00 / 0)

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by: jed @ Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 14:31:37 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

thanks, guys (1.00 / 1)

I can assure you that traders and speculators like me and the hedge fund I work for are looking forward to the creation of new multi-billion dollar futures and options contracts, where companies are forced to purchase and trade these things around in an illiquid market (and pay middlemen their cut, of course) in order to stay in business.

Yet another Obama Admin giveaway to the financial industry ... it's good to see that people on the left like Mr. Stevens are still completely snowed and serving as the useful idiot apologists for massive ripoffs of the middle class like this one.

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by: AndrewBissell @ Sat Jun 27, 2009 at 00:41:46 AM CDT

Why are so many of the communicants to this forum (0.00 / 0)

so singlemindedly concerned with the middleclasses?--and so apparently unconcerned with the coolies, peasants. peons, and serfs who populate that forgotten 3rd world lurking at the margins of this country..?

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by: jed @ Sat Jun 27, 2009 at 12:32:01 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Uhhhm, (4.00 / 1)

Because most of us are middle class?  That's why we have these new-fangled computing box thingies and high speed cable doohikies to the Intertubz.

Jed, I haven't really any interest in arguing this with you again.  You are simply wrong that the majority here are interested only in the middle class and care nothing for those in poverty.  I do notice that every time you foist that complaint it is to an argument and thread that specifically addresses the middle class, as if the middle class shouldn't  matter.  Here's a hint, jed, we do.  We are going to be self-concerned.  You seem to find that an evil because you pretend that self-concern preludes a concern for others.  That's where you're wrong, jed.  Plain flat wrong.

Andrew is correct, though obviously inadvertently.  He is incorrect about Obama's motivations.  But he is spot-on about the motivations in his own industry - manipulate the paper economy to rip off the middle class.  He's simply hoping for his cut of fleece.  It's understandable that you would decry that, but rather mysterious why you would extend that sensibility to painting Andrew as middle class, or blame the class for Andrew's immoral inclusion in it.

What Andrew is sadly most correct about is this:  the middle class pays the bills.  We do it frighteningly well for those who are our self-assumed 'betters' and very poorly for the 'serfs' (your term).  Regardless, we still pay the bills, from the steel worker to the middle manager.  Most folk 'round here take that as a given, and Andrew is simply attempting poorly to manipulate that.  That's Andrew's bad, not one of the middle class.  Global warming affects us all, and manipulative people like Andrew will argue for reform by pointing how how it will benefit his privileged set, and shouldn't we all be afraid of that.  He's showing the extreme of counter-productive in an effort to make people fear any effort at change.  If he truly is middle class, then he's kinda betraying our interests and seems exactly what you claim all of us are:  unconcerned about those less fortunate.  See, you're a wrong there, jed.  That he's unconcerned for the poor is incidental.  He's just interested in making the rich more rich, so that he might join the club of the elite.

It seems, jed, that you have a real problem with the fact that this website recognizes the importance of the middle class.  You want this website to be something else, it appears.  That must be frustrating to you.  Perhaps you'd be happier commenting here?

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by: Wulfgar @ Sun Jun 28, 2009 at 16:49:57 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Wulfgar you're absolutely correct. (0.00 / 0)

New Democrats are every bit as selfish as Republicans.  
And ol' jed was as usual dead wrong.  
He should have realized guys like you expect any benefits accrued to the middle class will trickle down--to eventually improve the conditions of the dispensible classes...  

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by: jed @ Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 14:40:28 PM CDT

[ Parent ]